Jason Stapleton is a multi-talented thought leader, for he is an author, a trusted public speaker, an entrepreneur, investor, and podcast host. He is also an award-winning film producer, having executive produced the award-winning documentary film “Refugee Is Not My Name.”
However, Jason Stapleton prides himself on his expertise at “influence and Brand Marketing.” Many people like to call themselves experts on branding and marketing after building only one successful brand. On the other hand, Jason has done the same thing multiple times for multiple companies in wildly different industries.
In 2009, Jason Stapleton launched TradeEmpowered.com, which helps educate currency traders about the finer things of the business, which would speed up their road to financial success. Even though trading education is one of the “most difficult niches in the world,” Jason managed to grow his company into one of the world’s leading and most respected companies in his field.
Jason Stapleton was hitting new highs in 2014. That same year, he decided to start his podcast called “Wealth Power & Influence,” which espouses libertarian economics and politics. In just two years, Jason’s podcast became the world’s number one libertarian podcast, having earned more than 30,000 listeners every day.
After rebranding himself as an investigative journalist in 2017 and hosting “The Tesla Files” TV show for the History Channel, Jason Stapleton launched his own website, JasonStapleton.com. The website’s mission is “to help entrepreneurs and sales professionals market themselves online.”
Check out more high-powered entrepreneurs here. You can check out Jason Stapleton’s content for his “Wealth, Power & Influence” show on his YouTube channel here.
Jerome Knyszewski: Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
Jason Stapleton: I started my entrepreneurial career in 2009. Prior to that I was working overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan doing security work for the U.S. Government.
While I was there I became a reasonably successful currency trader and had plans to start a hedge fund. But the regulation and cost involved were draconian so I decided to start an education company teaching traders and investors how I made money.
That company quickly grew to become one of the largest and most respected trading education companies on earth, with clients in over 110 countries.
In 2014 I launched my podcast “Wealth Power & Influence” that uses current events to teach entrepreneurial principles to new and aspiring entrepreneurs. Within two years it was the number one show in its category on iTunes with over 30,000 listeners each day.
In 2017 I was plucked by the history channel to host their new series on Nichola Tesla, “The Tesla Files”, a show that took me all over the world uncovering the mysteries surrounding his death.
Then in 2018 I started The Stapleton Agency, a consulting firm that helps entrepreneurs and business owners improve the results they get from their marketing and branding.
It’s been a wild ride but I’ve loved every minute of it.
Jerome Knyszewski: What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?
Jason Stapleton: Most of my clients don’t have a dedicated marketing department. They don’t have a copywriter on staff or someone to manage their advertising campaigns. They’re doing all of it themselves. It’s a huge learning curve and most of them have overcomplicated what they need to be doing. I operated the same way for years.
I realized what we do is very simple. Get a lead, make them an offer, and then follow up if they express interest. It’s not complicated or time consuming. I got tired of seeing all the aspiring ad consultants and social media managers giving complicated solutions to simple problems. I saw a need for the knowledge I had and I decided to get to work helping your average business owner improve his messaging so he can increase his leads and ultimately his sales.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?
Jason Stapleton: I remember when I was setting up my first website. I was living in Afghanistan at the time and I knew nothing about web development. In fact, the extent of my internet knowledge was how to do a google search.
As you can imagine, the internet speeds in Afghanistan left much to be desired. It was basically a dial up connection.
Each night I’d sit down at my desk and open 3 browser windows on my 15 inch laptop. The first window would have my website. The second window would have the WordPress code editor, and the third window would have a page with instructions on how to change a specific part of the code on my site.
Keep in mind, this is 2008. There was no Wix, no Clickfunnels, no Square Space. If you wanted a website you had to pay thousands of dollars or code it yourself.
So I’d sit there, for hours on end. I make a small correction to the code and clicking save in the editor. Then wait 10–20 seconds for the page to reload. Then I’d go to my website and click refresh, wait another 10–20 seconds to see if the change I wanted worked correctly. Nine times out of ten it didn’t and it was back to the coding blog to see what I missed.
This went on for months. Each night I’d beat my head against the desk, screaming and cursing at my computer wondering why I didn’t just pay someone to do it.
I’m glad I didn’t. Those months locked away in a 10×10 room on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan helped me develop the skills and understanding necessary to launch my first internet company a year later.
I don’t think people realize how easy we have it today. There’s no excuse for quitting. It’s too easy to succeed.
Jerome Knyszewski: So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?
Jason Stapleton: Perseverance always pays off. If you’re going to succeed in business it’s going to come at a cost. Sleepless nights, time away from family and friends, a rejection of what most of the world finds important.
While you’re on the journey you’ll be questioned and ridiculed. First for your idea, then for the lack of your immediate success and finally for what you achieve. Learning to weather that storm and having the strength of your connections is critical.
Those early days, the little wins I had, gave me the courage to walk my own path and ignore the haters and naysayers who tried to keep me from my dreams.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
Jason Stapleton: I don’t know if you’d call it a mistake but I remember when I first launched my company. I had a couple of affiliate partners who asked me to develop a trading course to sell. They told me that they would promote me to their lists.
I had been in business for only a couple of months and hadn’t made any real money. I’d only sold small subscriptions to a handful of customers.
These guys wanted me to charge $1,500 for a 90 day trading program and I thought they were nuts but I told them I’d do it.
We decided the best way to introduce me to the list was to hold a two week online seminar where I could trade and talk about my system. At the end we’d offer the course to all the attendees.
Not believing we’d actually sell anything I never bothered to create the course. When the last day came around I pitched them the outline I’d put together.
I sold over 150 courses! In two weeks I’d made more than $220,000 dollars from a course I hadn’t created.
Realizing what I’d done, I asked everyone to give me a week to recoup from the two week seminar. During that week I worked night and day to get the first section of the course done.
For the next 90 days I’d teach the current weeks content in the morning and then work on the next weeks content in the afternoon. No one was ever the wiser.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a few examples of tools or software that you think can dramatically empower emerging eCommerce brands to be more effective and more successful?
Jason Stapleton: I’ll leave that to the those who actually run ecomm businesses. My expertise is in the marketing and branding of those companies.
Jerome Knyszewski: As you know, “conversion” means to convert a visit into a sale. In your experience what are the best strategies an eCommerce business should use to increase conversion rates?
Jason Stapleton: Separate your advertising and content marketing into two categories. 1. Cold traffic (people who have never interacted with your brand before). 2. Those who have taken some kind of action on a specific product.
That action could be watching 25% of a demonstration video. It might be clicking on an ad.
Cold traffic advertising is all about creating interest and desire for what you have. We’re not particularly interested in making the sale. What we want is to raise the prospects awareness of your product and build a desire for it.
Once they’ve interacted with your brand then you retarget those people with direct offers to buy.
This increases your conversions while reducing your ad costs significantly.
Jerome Knyszewski: How can our readers further follow you online?
Jason Stapleton: Just go to www.followjason.com
Jerome Knyszewski: This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!
